Notes on Habits of Mind

Avoid single cause thinking.

Always adjust for inflation, especially when making direct comparisons (modern technology makes this easy nowadays).

Look for better ways to do everyday things. But be wary if better is coming at you via a sales pitch.

Never fail to recognize that policies or major decisions invariably have tradeoffs.

Resist algorithmic selection. E.g., don't mindlessly scroll through Netflix to find a show to watch--search for "best shows on Netflix". Better yet, maintain an ongoing list, to have a backlog at the ready. Certainly don't get your news from social media.

Don't confuse feeling like you are winning an argument with having a clear view of things. The tactics that we recruit for rhetorical purposes will steadily warp our ability to see truth and reason carefully about facts. Denialism perhaps being the most damaging in this way.

A favorite hobbyhorse: consciously resist the natural human "weakness" for a good story.

Year-End Deductibles Create Inefficiency

Christmas crowds the consumer shopping calendar and thereby creates inefficiencies and inconveniences. Guess what other personal finance event does the same thing, on exactly the same schedule? The year-end medical deductible!

The large majority of US healthcare plans match the deductible to the calendar year. The results is a skew toward pushing off treatment, in order to maximize meeting the deductible. Likely the largest factor is when a patient knows they are a candidate for an expensive procedure whose timing is highly elective (e.g. joint replacement). 

This covers the both the clear need case (knee replacement), but where there is substantial flexibility to push it off for a few years. It also cover the case where the patient wants a medically-covered procedure, even if they don't absolutely need it (in my own case, drooping eyelid that slightly obscured field of vision, so that it was medically necessary, but also something I could live with indefinitely). 

The result is that a substantial number of major procedures get crowded into the year-end. This makes life difficult and inefficient for everybody:

1. Providers and staff work too much at end of year.
2. Facility capacity has to be geared toward peak (like how utilities have to have generating capacity for daytime peak, rather than average load).
3. Consumers schedule things based on deductible-satisfaction, not their calendar optimum.
4. Some people get crowded out--including those with an urgent medical need, not tied to deductible-timing.

Probably even magnified since if you conclude in August you are likely to hit your deductible, it is going to be Nov-Dec before you can have that expensive procedure--magnifying the crowding.

I think it has always been that way

Inconsistent benefits years sucks for married people, but there could be some kind of fix, li

Idea: longer deductibles, like maybe 3 years?